Gryffindor Courage
by insaneflautist
Summary: Minerva McGonagall contemplates suicide after feeling she has failed Dumbledore, the school, and the students. Not SnapeMcGonagall! Slight OotP spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

Understanding *Author's Note*   
The characters belong to J.K. Rowling. Believe it or not, I was actually quite undepressed when I wrote this! Rated   
PG for suicide theme and one teeny tiny curse word. 

*********** 

With a dark scowl, the man stopped dead in his tracks. He was no longer alone. He silently cast his mind out into the   
darkness of the corridor, searching for a flicker of a thought from the person he had just heard inching their way along   
toward him. Could it be a Death Eater? Voldemort? he asked himself. Certainly at one point they would have never dared   
invade Hogwarts, but with the students gone and everyone off guard, it was now quite probable. The person was certainly   
hard to read, but his years of careful training allowed him to invade the figure's mental barriers. 

_~~I should just give up and jump. I've been talking myself out of it for years, but now I've let down my little lions   
and my colleagues and there's nothing stopping me. I'd hate to make Filch scrub my brains off the grass... but the   
thestrals will take care of my body in time anyway. I'll just jump. I'll be free of the world and it will be free of me.   
I'll jump.~~_

He could feel the person taking in a deep breath, summoning up some unknown force from within, and he strode briskly to   
the window in which the figure was crouching. 

"Minerva, what are you doing?" 

The woman gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise and slid off the windowsill onto the floor, her cane clattering on   
the stone. "Severus, what are you doing up at this time of night?" 

"I believe my question came first." Severus eyed Minerva darkly. 

"I'm as much an inhabitant of this castle as you, and I have every right to be here if I want!" She was angry at having   
been interrupted, that was obvious, but he felt a slight trickle of relief working its way through the back of her mind. 

"As do I. I just wonder why a colleague would happen to be hanging out of a fifth floor window at one in the morning. I   
do believe your behavior requires an explanation, while mine does not." He still searched her mind, feeling her out, while   
masking his face with his usual scowl. He was buying time. 

"Why do you care? It's none of your business," she snapped. 

He wanted to shout, to stalk off and leave her to kill herself, but something kept him glued to the spot, still looking at   
her. "So it's none of my business if a colleague tries to commit suicide right beneath my nose?" 

She gasped. "You were reading my thoughts?" Her voice rose sharply, furiously. 

Damn. Bad mistake. 

"Yes, and it's a good thing I was. Why do you want to die?" 

"Why were you a Death Eater?" she shot back. 

He bristled. Now he remembered why he didn't like Gryffindors. 

"I would think it to be obvious," he replied cooly, trying to remain calm. For a reason unknown to him, he actually cared   
that she stay alive. 

"So would I." When he continued to eyeball her, she sighed. "I'm useless. I'm a burden to the school, to Dumbledore,   
and I let down my children... Harry could have died... Sirius did..." She looked away quickly, but not before he saw a   
silvery teardrop easing its way down her face and glistening in the shaft of moonlight. 

"I can't even duel anymore and I can barely walk without this bloody cane. I let Hagrid get sacked— Sybill too— and I   
didn't protect them. I could have done something about Umbridge... Something to keep Albus at Hogwarts. And poor   
Neville... Ron... Hermione... Voldemort is back and I did nothing to stop it." She blinked furiously, but more streams of   
silver followed the first. 

Snape felt very uncomfortable. He had never seen Minerva McGonagall cry, and he had no idea what to say. He wished   
momentarily he had not interfered, but he shook off this thought and tried to speak. 

"Even Albus could not stop him. You did your best." 

She couldn't say anything, but she shook her head wordlessly. 

"I thought you were one of those infernal Gryffindors. Isn't courage supposed to be one of your strong points? Courage to   
keep on plowing through life even when things don't go your way?" He knew the words must sound harsh, but it was not   
in his nature to be sentimental and he knew how he had hated it when people had treated him like a fragile glass   
. knickknack after his parents had died. 

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes still brimming with tears, but filled with something besides hatred. Their   
gazes connected for a moment, and each realized with a start that the other understood. Snape gently pried into her mind   
once more and knew the thoughts of suicide had left her head. He swept on down the corridor, leaving her sitting on   
the floor beneath the window. 

"Severus?" 

He stopped walking but did not look back. 

"Thank you." 

He nodded, resumed his scowl, and strode down the dark corridor. But he was changed. He understood. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

She focused all her energy into moving one foot, then the other. Left, right, left, right. Must go forward. Must not stop. Leaves crunched under her running shoes in a slightly uneven beat and she winced every time her injured leg bore her weight, but she did not stop. She gasped for air, she had been running for a mile already, but she did not stop. Must. Go. On.

She suddenly tripped on a tree root and felt herself sailing through the air. She cringed, anticipating the hard landing that was certainly coming, and closed her eyes. The roots scraped her face and hands, cutting them and leaving rivulets of blood trickling unchecked. She groaned, staggered to her feet, and touched her forehead, feeling the bloody mess. Muttering a few choice words, she began to limp painfully toward the castle. Her leg hurt. Her hands hurt. Her head hurt. Her heart thudded about in her ribs after the effort of running, making her feel dizzy as she gasped for lost breath. Finally, she reached the castle and flung herself through the door, shutting out the fall evening.

She lay motionless on the stone floor for a moment, her pulse pounding in her temples and a stitch nagging at her side. Her eyelids fluttered open, but immediately closed again as she tried to shut out the black spots that clouded her vision. She was so tired, feeling so limp and helpless, that when the strong arms lifted her body she did not protest.

"What exactly did you think you were doing?" a cold voice intoned. A small sound of pain loosed itself from Minerva's lips and she opened one eye.

"Exercising," she managed to mutter. A cool cloth found the bleeding gash on her head and she winced, drawing away from it, but a strong hand held her head in place.

"Overdid it a bit, I should think." The voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Severus, I tried. I want to be strong enough to be useful again, to just be able to do something right..." One of those confounded tears dripped down her cheek.

"Getting yourself mauled by a tree is not the way to go," Severus smirked. He felt very uncomfortable again and a part of him longed to lose his sarcastic tone, but it was his protection, his shell that kept his emotions from tangling with the rest of the world. Another tear slid down in the path of the first and he a twinge of guilt permeated his shell.

"You don't listen to me. I told you before, there was nothing you could have done," he said, his voice a little less fierce than before. He dabbed at the congealed blood on her palm and her hands tensed. He smoothed essence of murtlap on the sores and her hands relaxed. He almost smiled. Almost.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"And that, Minerva, is the problem." He purposely made his voice cold, impersonal. "If you just didn't care so bloody much..."

"If I could just keep from caring so bloody much."

They didn't speak any more as Severus cleaned and placed snug bandages over the rest of the scrapes. He tipped a trickle of healing potion into her lips and she swallowed obediently. Finally, the uncomfortable process was finished.

"That's all," he snapped. She stood cautiously, testing her legs, and made to leave his office.

"Minerva?"

"Yes?"

"No more exercising."

She turned again to go, then changed her mind and whirled around. "Why do you care?"

He looked at her strangely.

"Why do you care about me all of a sudden? You never seemed to care if I lived or died before. What happened?"

"I still don't care," he said, trying to convince himself of it as much as her. Her brow furrowed and he saw a glimmer of injury in her eyes. "I just show it less than before," he amended cooly. She almost smiled and was almost out the office door when he began to speak again.

"I just wish someone had cared when I wanted it and in some strange, twisted way I believe that by showing some courtesy I can undo the wrongs of those before me."

"Severus," she said. He looked at her. "I'm sorry." He nodded briskly and turned to his paperwork. "Severus," she said again. He looked up, mildly annoyed. "I care. Thanks."

He raised an eyebrow, saw she was telling the truth, and nodded again. She left.


End file.
